URBNSurf

It's a bit of fun when the surf is shite. I had nearly 2 weeks in Melbourne/Mornington over Jan and the surf was onshore the whole time. Did 2 days of 2 sessions in the pool and really enjoyed it. Depends on the mode you choose as well. Heading to the Ments in August so will do a couple of sessions on the Lefts in 'beast' mode to get some practice on BH tubes as not many where I live on Sydney's NB. Doesn't compare to a good 'natural' session though!

Think you've summed up the feelings of a lot of people, Beard man.

Till they jumped in a tub, I reckon a lot of people took surfing's natural setting for granted.

For mine, one of the more interesting things is how many people DON'T have that response - i.e they just couldn't care, or at least can easily overlook, the artificiality of it all.

"Torquay kook". Lol.

To be honest it sounds like you went into the experience of it all wrong. Your gripe with it was that it wasn't the ocean. No shit. I view it as a fun option to break the tension after a prolonged run of shit surf, which if you live and surf in Vicco you'll be very familiar with. Probably been 15 or so times and all bar one session the vibe in the water was great. It's a weak-ish wave that allows for 1-2 fun turns or a short small barrel. Just take it for what it is and leave your 'the ocean is so pure and I'm one with nature in all it's natural glory" attitude at the scan in.

Andrew Kidman, an unexpected fan of urbnsurf.

https://surfsplendorpodcast.com/460-andrew-kidman-big-sky-limited/

Summary?

Didn't light me up at all, but my son is keen to go, so I'll end up there again at some stage.
Maybe Sydney because it's closer.
I found the whole experience weird and off-putting too- the way you end up wedged in a corner with a whole bunch of people.
No-one is directly hassling you, but it feels like people up in your grill the whole time.

Been a while since I listened to it - but board testing/experimenting/limiting the variables, and etiquette were the main points from memory.

IMO, this is for people outside Melbourne/Sydney - don't travel a long way just to surf it. If you are in Melb or Sydney (when it opens), book a couple of sessions while you are there and incorporate into your visit.

Don't do just one session. You'll get the hang of it in your last couple of waves of your first session so you'll need at least two.

If you can surf it with mates or family is more fun than on your own as well.

The ocean is and always will be better but you can still have fun there.

I had a very similar experience and a lot of the comments above i can relate too.

I was frothing on surfing it even after a mate said he wouldnt go back.

But for me everything felt wrong from the minute i walked in and got a wrist band and suited up then the school type safety talk, then stepping into the concrete pool, paddling up a wire fence, almost bumping boards, then the noise of the city and the machine.

But i thought okay it doesnt matter, wave looks fun, then comes my turn, and somehow i fkng miss my wave and go to the back of the line, then every wave after just felt weird and threw me and i felt like a total kook, i felt so disappointed in the whole experience and how i surfed and it left me feeling flat and bummed out.

Next day back home i surfed some pretty average onshore reforms, but everything felt right, only two others out, sand under my feet, the smell of the ocean, salt, seaweed, birds flying above and im looking up the coast at this beautiful landscape, the wind changing, the tide changing.

I didn't have the best surf wave/surfing wise i still wasnt surfing my best, but i surfed much better and i still came out of the water happy and refreshed, looking back at the ocean and landscape taking it all thinking yep this is what surfing is

And it really made me appreciate that surfing is much more than just riding a wave or how good the waves shape is, thats only one part of it, its all something much bigger and the ocean and nature for me is really important aspect.

Id honestly never go back even if i had a free session.

That said i think some of the other wave pools like that one in QLD might be more enjoyable as just seem more natural and not a concrete pool in the city, and just being able to see the waves coming and not looking at some concrete machine waiting for a surge.

indo-dreaming wrote:

And it really made me appreciate that surfing is much more than just riding a wave or how good the waves shape is, thats only one part of it, its all something much bigger and the ocean and nature for me is really important aspect.

Amen.

indo-dreaming wrote:

That said i think some of the other wave pools like that one in QLD might be more enjoyable as just seem more natural and not a concrete pool in the city, and just being able to see the waves coming and not looking at some concrete machine waiting for a surge.

More natural? What? You mean the one with the gigantic hissing plunger? Ok mate.

lostdoggy wrote:

IMO, this is for people outside Melbourne/Sydney - don't travel a long way just to surf it. If you are in Melb or Sydney (when it opens), book a couple of sessions while you are there and incorporate into your visit.

Don't do just one session. You'll get the hang of it in your last couple of waves of your first session so you'll need at least two.

If you can surf it with mates or family is more fun than on your own as well.

The ocean is and always will be better but you can still have fun there.

Spot on advice, LD, and freeride, I'm not gonna die on any hill in regards to defending a wave pool, but you only tried it on intermediate, yeah? There's not a lot of push in that setting to get excited about. The advanced settings are pretty fun, though the last advanced turns setting gets pretty washy.

Reckon your overthinking beardman.
Once you stop comparing it to the ocean and realising you’re in a pool for a bit of fun then it might be enjoyable.
In saying that though I’ve been 5 times and the last 3 I’ve come in early, was that bored I didn’t last the full hour.

Surfing in a privately owned, profit driven concrete cesspit can eat a syphilis riddled dick.

Hiccups wrote:

indo-dreaming wrote:

That said i think some of the other wave pools like that one in QLD might be more enjoyable as just seem more natural and not a concrete pool in the city, and just being able to see the waves coming and not looking at some concrete machine waiting for a surge.

More natural? What? You mean the one with the gigantic hissing plunger? Ok mate.

Yeah sure its still a man made wave in a man made water body with this big ugly plunger, but the Yeppoon wave pool environment still looks much more natural.

It's in the country and the backdrop is bush and hills id expect you can smell the bush hear birds etc, and even the wave looks more natural in the way it appears in swell lines and how it breaks, even the water is more natural looking, id expect there is even fish and eels in there.

While there is nothing natural about Urban surf it's in a city near a busy highway under a busy flight path, all concrete, metal wire and chlorinated water, even plastic grass.

With the plunger cropped out this could be a real wave breaking into an little inlet somewhere

Another pool.

I think the Plunger idea is good, swells go in all directions ,so a variety of waves catering for a lot more people.

I'm wondering IF, when ya sitting in the barrel watching the elipse,its the same sensation of time slowing down as the ocean provides?

6 deg water-

12 Expert sessions at Syd compared to 2 at Melb. To many Torquay kooks?

I visited the Sydney one in June with I think 9 mates, split fairly evenly across the left and the right. Advanced turns from memory. It was a rainy, miserable day and the water temp 12 degrees, so the tub had an uphill battle from the outset endearing itself to we ill-equipped banana benders. The water was sooo much colder than the waves we had otherwise been surfing around Cronulla.

We did a debrief afterwards and I think only one person in our group was keen to go back again.

One of our biggest beefs (and perhaps we had a bad day) was there were 18 ppl per side (so pretty packed) and the other crew in the water while we were there had the place fairly wired and were not interested in the 1st or 6th waves in the "sets", which apparently aren't as good. So the staff member was letting these waves go unridden OR just took em themselves. This meant only 4 waves per set for we hungry, freezing punters.

Well, that was until a little over half way through when we worked out what was going on and asked if we could still take wave 1 or 6. If the next-up surfer was fussy and didn't want these sub-par runners (fair enough), you'd think the staff member would ask if someone else in the line was keen for it. But nah.

So contrary to others' experience it was anything but a wave-fest for us where everyone's cardio was tested. Rather we spent a lot of time bobbing, freezing our ta-ta's off and trying not to get bounced into the cyclone wire fencing. My feet were so cold by the time I got back to the front it felt like I had golf balls embedded in my arches. I do, however, readily acknowledge we're soft north of the Tweed.

Back to the staff member. As well as taking for himself a stack of waves we had paid for, he also provided zero counsel: as newbs we initially had no idea and were completely dependent upon other surfers for tips on where to wait, when to start paddling, how that all changes again when the wave setting adjusts to barrels midway through, etc. Some might say it's intuitive but not all of us found that. I also can relate to the sort-of-anxiety Steve refers to above with the ever-present line of impatient, sometimes seething, fellow-surfers bobbing away right there, pressing upon you, wanting their turn, as eager as you are to extract some bang from these bucks.

So yeah, that hour turned out to be the biggest disappointment of our trip when most of us expected it to be the highlight. As it happens the perennially embattled Tigers getting a rare dubya over the Titans at the 8th wonder of the world was the pinnacle of our weekend (which is to say, our expectations were never that lofty).

But, having concluded my almighty whinge, it should also be said that with the lessons learnt from our first experience, warmer water (or better wetties) and a more thoughtful staff member, perhaps a second go could be quite enjoyable. We're just not in a screaming rush to find out.

Man.... id be getting that Staff Member Sacked
Fook That !!!

unbelievably well-written perspective snapshot @rj, feel like I get it.
(love how @suchas' edinburgh wave-pool above,
looks exactly like middling scottish mainland waves,
almost seems a themed experience).

Sounds similar to my experience, people seem to either dig it or diss it, not many in between.

I still think that plunge pool joint looks much better.

I'm down the coast 1.5 hours from the Melb pool and still haven't been. Surprised myself by how uninterested i am. Apart from the obvious whole point of the thing which is getting to surf 10-20 ok waves in an hour I don't see a single other positive but i can sure as hell list negatives.

Water temp in winter.
Unknown crowd dynamics for any given booking.
Sitting next to a concrete wall while 15 other punters look at you from the water and possibly more above and in front.
All the while cars doing 80-100kmh past on the other side of the fence, planes taking off.
Start and end time.

Makes me realise maybe 90% of the reasons i surf is not the actual doing turns on water part, its the rest. If the ocean had no waves and pool surfing was the only form, I wouldn't be interested.

ron - add in the cost too. I think it's over $100 for most sessions now.

Give it a miss.

I'm Melbourne based and it's a once a year novelty (at best) for me.

Also the Perth tub has been delayed. Reading between the lines it looks like they've had trouble getting investors on board. Now saying it won't be ready until 2027.

Bnkref wrote:

Also the Perth tub has been delayed. Reading between the lines it looks like they've had trouble getting investors on board. Now saying it won't be ready until 2027.

I hope it never gets up. Destroying what little there is of remnant coastal Banksia sp. woodland and habitat of Carnaby’s, Baudin and Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos and thousands of other species is as dumb as dog shit., , human beings, the not so smart a species.AW

Bnkref wrote:

ron - add in the cost too. I think it's over $100 for most sessions now.

Give it a miss.

I'm Melbourne based and it's a once a year novelty (at best) for me.

For sure. For me it would be also fuel for a 200km round trip plus food etc. Would anyone bother for 1 session? So make it at least 2. Total on 2 sessions you are in the vicinity of the current lift pass day prices that everyone thinks is criminal. Meanwhile the lift pass gets you all day. This is 2 hours. Not good value.

When ever i think about it i allocate those $ to the indo or Japan snow fund and go down the rd to surf for free. 2-$300 gets me allot of mileage on a surf trip.

To pay the pool its due however, It has been great for mates that live in Melbourne and have always dabbled in surfing but never got the consistent reps to get anywhere skills wise. A few have memberships and are getting some value out of it. Guys that are early 40's and close to giving up, clawing back some confidence one session at a time, happy for them. Bonus, many in the same boat aren't doing it on the same bank as me. Does it create more on the other end though? Not sure yet.

If i was stuck in Melbourne it might persuade me to put the gun down, for a while.

I've lived 15 minutes from the Tulla tub for the last 2 years and 100 times out of 100 I would rather make the drive to either coast than surf the pool.

I tried to convince my boss this year to have our Christmas party there so I could give it a go without paying.

only-sams wrote:

I've lived 15 minutes from the Tulla tub for the last 2 years and 100 times out of 100 I would rather make the drive to either coast than surf the pool.

I tried to convince my boss this year to have our Christmas party there so I could give it a go without paying.

Good try!